It is known to automatically operate machine tools by a “numerical control” (NC) method utilizing a programmed digital computer or a programmable logic controller (PLC) connected to the machine tool to form a computer numerical control (CNC) machine tool. A user program (part program) is provided in an NC programming language (G-code program) to operate the CNC machine tool to perform a manufacturing process. The programming is typically done in standards-based programming languages such as FBD (Function Block Diagram), LD (Ladder Diagram), ST (Structured Text, similar to Pascal programming language), IL (Instruction List, similar to assembly language), and SFC (Sequential Function Chart). However, differences in I/O addressing, memory organization and instruction sets mean that the programs are never perfectly interchangeable between different machine tool makers.
It is also known to operate machine tools by a robot. Typically, robots are controlled by computers executing software programs proprietary to the robot manufacturer. The differences between the NC programming languages and the robot programming languages prevent the robot controllers from executing an NC language program written for a CNC machine tool.
Typically, a CNC machine tool requires a more costly mechanical structure than a robot machine tool to achieve the desired functionality. For many machine tool applications, users demand NC programming language to program the machine tools since the NC languages have been traditionally used. Unfortunately robots cannot be used in such markets because robot controllers cannot interpret and execute the commands in such NC programs. On the other hand, NC controllers are not readily able to control robots due to the special nature of robot control (such as complex kinematics arithmetic, etc.).
There are some offline conversion systems that can create a robot program from an NC program. However, such conversion system generally only convert the motions of the mechanical structure, but are not able to convert the “M-code” (Miscellaneous code) to take care of machine specific application processing. Because M-codes are defined by the user (machine tool builder) for the specific machine tool they build, the robot controller will not be able to execute an M-code without the knowledge of how it should be processed.